My Life in a Nutshell
by NightBurd
Summary: So this is based on the Gone series, but I've definitely made it my own. ENJOY!
1. Author's Note

**Hi again!**

**Ok, so I did MLIAN a while ago but I was really unhappy with how it went _(it was going too fast in the first five chapters, the story was unbelievable. Also my favourite character that I made up...well I read Plague and Fear and I realised she's got the same power as Penny D":) _so I have deleted the old one, and I'm rewriting, with possible different characters and a slightly different story line. Also, there's a lot of British/English phrases or words in there, so if you don't get it, just ask me. I might even post a list of the words and their meanings up...anyway.**

**If you've read my stories before you will know that I upload like...once every two months or something, so I'm sorry about that...usually that happens, and I have a holiday, I write loads and I have things to upload for a while and then school keeps me busy. BUT IT'S THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS!**

**...so I should be ok lol XD**

**K comment, tell me about any grammar or spelling mistakes because I don't really check up on that stuff, and tell your friends or whatever. **

**KTHNXBAI...UREADNAO XD**


	2. Chapter One

My Life in a Nutshell

Chapter One

I don't believe you

_"And today, sunshine for a change, with highs of 20 degrees and blue skies all the way across London. For Scotland - " _

Rebecca Avery was sitting at the kitchen table munching on some toast, covered in Bovril, whilst spreading some jam on another piece. She looked up as the weather man stopped talking, or rather, the radio was switched off. Jeraldine Hopkins walked towards the breakfast table, and placed one hand on her hips, and the other on the white wooden table, next to Rebecca's right shoulder.

"Alright you lot, listen up. Eddy, you should be outside already." she said, focusing more on spreading butter over her piece of toast. Ben, a reddish-brown haired boy with brown eyes and a face full of freckles, got up and slung his school bag over his shoulder.

"Eddy's in bed. He threw up." he explained. Jeraldine raised an eyebrow but gestured for the nine year old to move on. "I'll check on him later. Alice, Henry, Ella, Bex, and Ben, I'm leaving early and taking Bella with me because I have a meeting at ten to eight, so you'll need to leave in five minutes."

A groan sounded from Bex and the others. "Hey!" she shouted. "No complaining, I recommend you get a move on." and she clopped to the kitchen door in her high stilettos and beige leather jacket. Rebecca left her jam covered toast and quickly gobbled up the rest of her Bovril covered toast. She sighed as she got up from her place at the head of the table and picked up her china bowl with tired arms that, much like her foggy head, hadn't really woken up yet, as she dumped it in the sink for the colossal team of fifteen cleaners to clear up later that day.

She skipped brushing her teeth and instead grabbed her keys and zip card from the polished marble table in the hallway, and walked out through the marble front door with a dull and absent minded attitude.

Bex walked down to the bus stop nearest the Hopkin mansion, the cold wind whipping her hair out of her face and bringing tears to her eyes. She brushed them away with her sleeve, remembering what Jeraldine would have said if she'd been there.

_'Even if it's just a tear, use a hanky, it looks better!' _

Rebecca didn't like her foster mum.

She had lived in an orphanage all of her life though, and having as much as three days with Jeraldine in her huge mansion was better than any one day she'd ever had, so she tried to keep quiet.

"Hey, Bex!"

"Wait up!"

Bex looked up the hill to see Henry, Alice, and Ella running down the pavement towards her. They stopped in front of her, panting, and she noticed that her younger brother Ben was running down a little way behind them.

"C'mon Ben!" Henry beckoned him closer with his hand. He finally reached them, grinning wildly. His sister raised an eyebrow.

"What's this about guys? Why did you bother running?" she asked. "The bus isn't here yet-"

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Be-ex, happy birthday to you!" they sang, cutting her off but making Bex smile and laugh wildly as they all finished on different flat or sharp notes. Ben ran up to her and hugged her tight.

"We have presents for you, but we'll give them to you tonight, ok?" he giggled.

"You guys, that's so sweet, thank you!" Bex smiled. She had completely forgotten that it was her birthday today. Or at least her pretend birthday. Her actual birthday was on August the 22nd, but no one was ever around to celebrate, so she had agreed to always celebrate with friends on January the 22nd, so this was her fourteenth fake birthday.

_Wait a second... _she thought. _Did Jeraldine forget? Or was she just pretending not to remember, so that these guys could make it a surprise..?_ she wondered, and started to think mean and unforgiving thoughts about her current foster mother.

Just at that moment, the unmistakable red W5 came around the corner, and the kids all hopped on. Henry walked over to stand next to a group of Saint Lana's boys, and Alex and Ella both sat on some of the Hightree girl's laps at the back of the bus, leaving Bex and Ben standing next to an old lady with a vicious looking beige chihuahua on her lap. Eventually, her little brother made an apologetic face, and went to sit down with the Hightree Junior kids from his class. But Bex was waking up and regaining her usual cocky tomboy mood, and so she didn't mind as she clutched onto a yellow pole and stared out of the bus windows at the streets they passed.

Henry and Ben got off at Saint Lana's, waving goodbye and making silly faces through the glass windows on the bus. Alice and Ella got off one stop later, at Hightree School, and just as the bus started to climb the hill before Canan Girl's School the bus gave a sudden start, and then rolled slowly down the hill. Some girls in the same brown uniform as Bex gasped, and others ran towards the drivers cab, but she noticed that the adults had disappeared from the seats that they had been sitting in seconds ago. The sixth formers from Canan were also just...gone.

_No. They got off at other stops,_ she told herself. _I just didn't notice. _

"What the hell is going on in there?" She peeked into the driver's cab to have another go at the terrible driver, but he wasn't there. She gawped in shock at the empty seat, before a long, high pitched scream snapped her back to the present. She kicked at the driver's cab door, before realising that it would have been fine to have just turned the handle. As Bex swung herself into the seat, she looked up to see a black Lexus crashing backwards into the bus, and almost crushing her leg.

A yelp escaped her tight throat, as she looked down to see her brown tights darkening in a line a little way under her knee. However, she covered her mouth with her hand, pushed her foot down hard on the brakes and determinedly pulled a lever towards her, which shook the bus so hard that Bex was afraid that parts would come off of the frame. But it held on the road and didn't slide down the hill or shake so that parts would come off.

"Everyone get off the bus!" Bex yelled out of the cab, and the kids crowded around her looked at her expectantly.

"Oh, right..." she muttered to herself, and pushed a button that said in big letters:

**OPEN DOOR**

With a hiss, the doors opened. The passengers, mostly Canan girls from Bex's school, ran streaming out onto the street, and Bex realised with a mental laugh that she was five minutes late.

"Or at least, I will be if I keep standing here." she said sternly to herself, and started to hobble up the hill, the lights green but no cars to be seen on the high street. She would be so popular at school when she told everyone the story of her morning...but Mrs Hemlin would kill her for being late. Bex pushed open the iron gates to the school and jogged up the slope to the main buildings of Canan Girl's School.

She practically crashed into her classroom, and half of the girls in 9H jumped up from underneath the tables into the dark classroom. The others seemed to be mysteriously absent, worrying Bex even further.

_"HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEX!" _they shouted, and Bex laughed, a nervous laugh, still conscious of the blood dripping down her leg. She would go to the nurse the second that her teacher came in.

"Happy birthday Bex!"

Bex's closest friends, Yasmin, Eve, Amy, Marcelle, Rosie, Cornelia, and Fiona all gathered around to hug her as the rest of the class turned back to the computers, books or packing that they had been doing before, Bex assumed, her friends had told everyone to get under the desks. Yasmin pulled away and pinched her tights, looking down at her leg, and then the birthday girl's. She screamed.

"Yasmin, Yasmin calm down! It's just a gash!" she whispered angrily at her friend, trying not to draw attention to herself. Yasmin gasped in for air, and the rest of her friends stared down at the floor, trying to find what had scared her. She stopped screaming, and tried to give Bex some space as the crowd grew when their classmates curiously gathered around her trying to spot the cause of all the panic.

"What happened?" she shouted. Bex put her index finger to her lips and stared furiously at Yasmin, trying to to convey that she needed her to shut up.

Clearly, the message was not getting across.

"I was on the bus, and then I think...er...the bus driver leapt out of the window or something. Except it wasn't open...anyway, he just disappeared, I know it sounds like I'm making it up but he did, and I tried to put on the brakes 'cos we were on a hill, and a car in front of us rolled down and smashed into the driver's cab, and it hit my leg. No biggie." she laughed. Another nervous laugh. She just wanted to get out of the classroom, but the whole of 9H had their eyes trained on her.

"I don't believe you." a girl called Alex said.

"I promise it's true!" Bex protested.

"I think you just tripped." Alex continued.

"How do you get a gash that big from tripping? Not possible." Amy reasoned.

"Lets get you to the nurse." Marcelle said. Bex nodded gratefully, and started to hobble down the stairs and out of the building into the school courtyard. "Where's Mrs Hemlin?" she asked.

"Ten minutes late I guess." Eve shrugged.

_Thank god for that._

Yasmin knocked on the nurse's door, but didn't wait, and pushed it open. The room was empty, the french doors open to let a gentle breeze waft in. The yellow striped curtains blew outwards in a slightly creepy manner.

"Where is she?" Bex asked. No reply from anyone.

Well. No one had an answer.

They walked back over Rennurb House, where all the middle school classrooms were, and went into BH1, the 9F classroom.

All the girls were sitting around on the fake wood desks, and they turned to ask Bex what was wrong.

"Where's Mrs Fickley?" that was Cornelia, responded to with a shrug. The 9F teacher was also, noticeably absent. She turned to look suspiciously at the group of girls now huddled around Bex, who was a worrying shade of grey.

"Isn't Mrs Hemlin there either?" someone asked, at the same moment as a 9G girl barged through the doorway, asking if any of them had seen Mr Gevrol, her class teacher. A messenger went across two classrooms down the hallway and confirmed that Mrs King, the last Year Nine teacher was also, nowhere to be found.

"Let's go to Mrs Corn's classroom, the Year Ten's in there'll know what to do." Bex suggested in a meek voice, speaking of their sensible and sometimes unfortunately knowing Maths teacher. Her friends shook their heads.  
"We need to get you a bandage, or a plaster or something." Fiona said.

"Ok, so you go get one of those and we'll check out 10C while you do." Bex suggested, a little impatiently. Her day wasn't off to a good start.

Fiona hesitated, but then whizzed off, back to the empty nurse's room. They all stumbled on eachother's feet, and stood in front, peeking into the room because no one wanted to talk to the Year Tens. No Mrs Corn. No girls either.

"What the hell..."

"The Year Eight's are all here, and I've seen all of the Year Seven's as well...no Sixth Formers or Year Tens, and a lot of Year Nine is missing. We also haven't seen any teachers, or members of the staff at all for that matter."

"What does that mean?" a 9G girl, called Lucy sobbed.

The crowd of girls were mumbling to eachother, speculating, and worrying. No one had a clear head to think with. Bex had been just about to suggest that this was a school test on how sensible they were as Middle-Schoolers, when Fiona came running down the hallway with a long, thin plaster. She quickly peeled off the clear plastic on the back, and leaned on her left foot, tapping her right.

"Well?" she huffed. "Take your tights off!" Bex started undoing her shoe laces on her currently in-style brogues.

"Just kick them off!" Marcelle snapped. Bex glared at her, right in the eye, and didn't look away as she kicked off her shoes and peeled off her brown tights to reveal a sticky long stripe of blood. The crowd around her gasped. She made a noise somewhere between a growl and a snarl, impatient with all the angry and surprised little schoolgirls around her. Although they were the same age as her, she was in a mood and was starting to look down on her friends and classmates.

Fiona carefully placed the plaster on top of the cut and smoothed it down with a hiss of pain from Bex. Fiona stood up from her hunched position, and exhaled.

"So what do you think we should do?"


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Follow the leader

The crowd turned to face Bex for reasons unbeknownst to her. She stared around at the girls looking to her for guidance and advice, and wondered why the hell they had turned to her.

"What?" she shrugged. They were still staring at her. Waiting for an answer. She sighed. If they went onto the streets, or up to the schools around town, they could see if the adults there were also absent there as well. Bex didn't quite believe that the adults and Upper-Schoolers were just gone. She didn't let herself believe it. "Well we could go up to Hightree...or Saint Lana's..?" she suggested. It seemed a good enough plan for the girls, since they had no idea what to do or where to go.

As they turned to walk down the hallway and out of the school, they saw the whole of Year Eight and about half of Year Seven streaming out the doors of Rennurb House, and they ran to catch up.

"Hey!" Bex tapped the shoulder of Year Seven girl at the back of the mob. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"We're going to Fairwill. If they haven't got adults either than they're far more lost than we are." she responded. Fairwill, Canan Girl's School's junior school, was for girls from 4 years old, to 11 years old. Bex hadn't thought of this, and nodded her thanks to the girl, who turned back to face the front and continue to walk out of the school.

"Are we following them?" a girl asked Bex, who frowned.

"I don't know, I'm not in charge. But I'm following them to Fairwill." she said. The girl looked slightly confused, but Bex puffed out air and shrugged it off, jogging a little bit to run up to the back of the crowd again.

They reached the iron gates of the school pretty quickly, flooding out like a flock of brown birds onto grey tarmac and paving stones. The sight before them was horrifying.

Cars with no one in them, crashed against other cars and buses and lorries, the wheels missing, the hoods torn and flattened against the road. Bex breathed out a small sigh of relief that there had at least been no one in the cars as far as they could see, and she wasn't about to go looking for people. They weaved their way around bits of metal and flames, seats with springs popping out of them, driving wheels randomly strewn on the pavement like litter. There was a lot of litter too. Juice cartons, a couple of Costa and Nero bags which could have held anything from cookies, to panini's, accompanied by coffee cups and water bottles. They got back onto the pavement on the other side of the street, punched in a code that bex remembered from her time as a student at Fairwill, and opened the pupil's entrance. In the courtyard, there was no one, and a quick check down the side of the buildings confirmed that the playground was also void of any signs of human life. Looking down hallways:

No one.

Peeking into classrooms:

Not a living thing...except maybe the plants.

There were no teachers or kids, and there was just an eerie silence that followed them throughout the school. They checked the library, the dining room, the garden sheds, the nurse's room and all of the offices. But they hadn't checked one place.

The hall was a madhouse.

To make up for all of the silence and lonely feel that the rest of the school had, the hall was filled with little and not-so-little girls who were taking advantage of the absence of responsible adults. Kids were running around and screaming, and shouting, and playing with toys in a rough manner. But at least they were all in the hall, and were silent soon after as the girls came in. They looked up guiltily. As if they thought they were in trouble.

"You speak to them." someone nudged Bex forward and she almost tripped up on a Reception girl playing with a squeaky dinosaur. The girl bit her upper lip and looked up at her apologetically. Bex made an annoyed grunt.

"Hey guys. Where are your teachers?" she asked them with all the patience and kind will that she could muster. Maddie, a friend in Year Six from when Bex had been at Fairwill answered her with a worried look.

"They're really late I guess." she shrugged like it was no big deal, but she could see that Maddie was scared.

"I'm sure it's fine," Bex didn't know how much to tell them. "So, our teachers are gone too. Why don't we all go up to Waterdrop Park for a while huh?" she made the decision up on the spot, and started to take it back, but the little girls were all getting up and standing in lines to be led out by the older girls. Bex looked back at the others, and with no one suggesting anything else, they walked out of the big oak doors and onto the road.

She tried to drop behind as they made a line of three people wide, but if she moved back they would move back behind her.

_What is it with me being a leader? I guess it's kind of cool being a leader and making the decisions, but there are girls who are more responsible and, well, better with people than me here. Why me? _She pondered as they walked the last couple of steps to the park.

As they walked in, lush grass and tall trees greeted their eyes, a relief from all of the smoking remains of vehicles and flames. Someone called out something from around the back of the school group. A Year Seven.

"Look, there're Saint Lana's!"

"Oh yeah I see them!"

"Boys! We should hide!"

Bex giggled at the prospect of boys. In an only girls school it wasn't much fun just having bitch fights and only knowing girls, so she could sort of understand how the slightly younger girls would get embarrassed and excited over it, though she tried to keep her cool. She spotted Henry and Ben, and hurried over.

"Hey guys!" she laughed, trying to ignore the multiple stares from the boys and the girls, who had just stopped walking in front of them.

"Bex, our teachers aren't there!" Ben said, his lower lip wobbling.

"Nor are ours, but it's kinda cool huh?" she tried to reassure him with a goofy looking grin. But Ben was a bright kid. He knew this was bad. No adults, no supervision. No adults, no food...

She pushed the thought away and reminded herself that there was a gun shop in Archway. She started fantasizing about locking herself in the deli up the highstreet and living there with a shotgun...Bex played a lot of Halo.

"Yeah I guess..." he muttered, waking her up from her daydream.

Bex walked back to the Canan girls and asked a fellow Year Nine where they should sit. The other girl looked back at her with wide eyes and shrugged. Bex shrugged back, and made her way over to a grassy spot about fifty meters from the Saint Lana's boys. The girls subconsciously made a huge circle, and an idea sprung to mind.

"Concentration!" she started chanting, and clapped hands in a game style with the girls next to her, both Fairwill. Everyone knew this one, and so it spread fast.

"64! No repeats! Or hesitations!"

"Starting with...boys names!" everyone chanted, and looked at Bex.

"I'll go first then." she. "Ben!" she shouted. Three boys including her brother stood up from Saint Lana's and waved, much to the delight of the girls, who all laughed. A girl called Annabel sitting next to her said,

"Bruce!" One boy.

"Sam!" Five boys.

"Edward!" Two and a half..? "I'm just Ed!" the half shouted out, receiving a chorus of laughter from the girls.

"Jacob!" someone said. But Bex had stopped clapping, and was staring at something behind her, causing panic with a lot of girls who noticed. They immediately stopped clapping, and stared towards where Bex was frowning.

"Hey guys? We've got a problem."


	4. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Pearly Grey

Bex scrambled to her feet, and ran down the hill, the oldest and fastest streaming down behind her.

She stopped by the very edge of Waterdrop Park, and stood panting, with the girls a little way behind her. She walked forward, her mouth a little open, as if she wanted to say something, but couldn't find the right words. Couldn't get them out.

In front of them was a pearly grey wall, stretching up as far as she could see. Curving in towards the top. Making a dome.

She put her hand in. For a second she just touched it. She couldn't get through it, because it was solid, but she didn't have any more time to analyse the wall, because after about a second there was a zapping sound, and then her finger hurt and she yelped. It stung.

"What is it?" Marcelle asked her, giving Bex a little shock as she hadn't realised that a crowd had gathered behind her.

"I could feel it for a second. It's solid, hard and smooth, and then after that it was like a tiny electric shock. It really hurt on impact but now that I think about the memory, it doesn't seem like it hurt that much." she pondered, curious more than she was scared.

"Where does it stop?" someone from Saint Lana's asked, and she turned to see the boys behind them.

"I don't know." Bex breathed.

"How far? How big is it?"

"I don't know." she said repeated. Everyone just stared for a while, but the pearly grey barrier thingy was making her feel sad and lonely, so she started walking back to the grassy area where they had settled, and were greeted by Hightree Junior and Hightree School. All male and female.

"What are you doing here?" someone from Hightree asked.

"Taking the kids for a stroll," Bex answered casually. Hightree and Canan had a long lasting history of hate for eachother. They were bitter rivals until the end. "Yourselves?"

"The same." the same person shrugged, holding tighter to the Junior School boy she was carrying. The schools exchanged hostile glares at eachother, and sat down a little way apart.

"So what do we do?" someone from Hightree shouted for the second time that day. Silence met him.

Slowly, kids from all around without uniforms trickled in, clutching blankets and teddy bears. She recognised Eddy from the mansion with a blanket still in his shorts and a T-shirt. He was almost fifteen though, and Bex hadn't really spoken to him before. They joined their schools mostly, but some just sat down in random spots on the grass, under trees or by ponds on the main entrance slope where they were.

"There's a barrier thing down there." Bex said, staring at something distant and far away. She had just wanted to break the silence, but someone else spoke back.

"It cuts in our house down in Archwall."

"I saw it a little way away from the top of the Highstreet."

"It cuts in a couple of suburbs in Crouchstone."

"So that means that it covers Hightree, Crouchstone, Archwall and a little bit of area past Hightree, almost Hampsteed." Bex concluded a little impatiently. Silence.

"We've got a fairly small area that you can get all the way around on a bus in about twenty minutes. But that's just the town area. I think the whole of the Woods and half of the Heath is here," Bex said. "So actually that's a big area."

A lot of 'Hm...'s and 'Uhuh...'s were exchanged. She rolled her eyes and hugged her knees to her chest, putting her chin on top.

_What're we gonna do now? What is there to do? Everyone seems to have gathered here...and that means everyone's in the right place for a speech. But I don't want to! Why can't someone a little more responsible do it? _she whined in her head.

"Oof!" she grunted, as someone crashed into her.

"Oh I'm so sorry!"

Bex looked up to see a girl with dark brown hair that fell in a ring around her shoulders, and warm brown eyes. Tanya Mason.

"Are you Tanya?" she asked. Tanya nodded.

"And your name is?"

"Bex," she answered. Tanya was a smart, pretty, and super popular Canan girl who had supposedly been off ill today. Now here she was, perfectly healthy in tracksuits and a long sleeved pyjama top.

"Nice to meet you," Tanya beamed, but it was gone in half a second. "Can you tell me about this grey wall thing I keep hearing about?" she asked.

"Sure," Bex began. "Looks like there's a big pearly grey wall down the hill there," she pointed down to where she and her friends had run down earlier. "When you touch it, it gives you an electric shock, and it's solid and smooth."

"How deep and high does it go?" Tanya pushed. She got a shrug in answer.

"Well c'mon then!" she twirled around and started to walk down the hill.

"Where're you going?" Bex called after her.

"To find out more about this thing!"

Bex rolled her eyes and jogged after her.

Tanya stopped short in front of the barrier and reached out to touch it. There was the zapping sound again, and she snatched her hand back and made a hissing sound.

"I told you." Bex said.

"I know, I know."

Tanya kicked the barrier. Nothing. She held her foot against it. _Zap! _

"Ok, so clothes have no effect." she murmured to herself. Bex crossed her arms and put her weight onto one leg. She had a feeling she was going to be here for a while.

Tanya quickly dug her foot into the ground, and dragged it out, making a hole in the earth. The wall was still there, and you still couldn't see a thing through it. She dug deeper and deeper until there was a hole about a metre deep.

"I think we can assume it goes on for a while." Bex said in a bored manner.

"You can't just _assume_ that! I need a shovel..." Tanya retorted.

"Well I don't have a shovel." Bex snorted. Tanya turned to face her.

"Why don't you care about this? At all?" she challenged her.

"It's not that I don't care...I've had a pretty hectic day, ok?"

"So have I. And right now, I just wanna find out if my parents are ok. Don't you?!" Tanya shouted at her. Bex glared. She had hit a nerve. Didn't this stupid girl know about her parents?

"Actually, I do." she said quietly, trying to keep her anger inside of her. It was almost equal to putting a cork on a volcano at this point. Most of it had something to do with the fact that she was tired, confused, and wanted to know when the older kids were coming back. And the adults.

"If the teachers are this late, the older girls are gone, and there's a major wreckage in the streets, then what if they're just gone huh? How would you feel if your parents where just snatched away from you like that?" Tanya snapped her fingers. She was going a bit far. Parents disappearing completely was a bit much to assume, and as she had pointed out minutes ago, 'You can't just _assume_'.At this point Bex wanted to slap her. She knew exactly how that felt, and this girl was rubbing it in her face.

Tanya gave up, shaking her head and starting to climb up the hill, back to where the kids were camped out. Once Bex was back up with her, she saw the 'ill' girl standing up, and talking to everyone.

"...anyone know where I can find a shovel?"

No one responded.

"Ok..." she muttered. Bex stood next to her classmates.

"Hey guys, I'm going back to my house."

"I'll come with. I live nearby, I can drop in."

"Me too."

"Sure, I'll come."

Bex sighed. It hadn't exactly been an open invitation. She started walking up the slope towards the gates, and gained ten or so more followers, which then split when she opened the gates. As the groups separated, Bex became a group of four, walking down the hill, then three when they turned left, two, and finally, it was just her as she stood in front of the door to Jeraldine's house. She reached down for her keys, but realised that she didn't have her schoolbag on her.

_If Jeraldine is in the house, she'll kill me. _she thought. _But if she's not...she deserves it. _

As Bex thought that, she wondered what exactly her foster-mother had done to 'deserve it'

because really, Bex just hated her for not caring too much about what went on in her life. And Jeraldine _did _have plenty of other foster kids to look after.

Bex brought her foot up to the window, the heel of her shoe almost touching the glass, and then drew it back to smash through the pane. Except it didn't smash.

They did it just like that in films, why didn't it work now?

She repeated the action twice more, until the once transparent solid, became a billion shards of whiteness, tumbling towards her. Bex raised her hands instinctively, but too late, because a large shard pierced her skin, and she felt a drop of warm blood rolling down her cheek, like a tear, but hotter. she wiped it away, and pulled out the shard, not realising how much it would hurt before she yanked it out of her skin.

Her kick had only made a little jagged hole, and so she used her elbows to make a bigger hole that she could scramble through without cutting herself. Once she was inside, Bex walked into the kitchen, to see a couple of dishes, smashed on the tile floor, and a soapy sink of water.

_Aren't the cleaners supposed to come today? _ she thought, her eyes widening as she realised that this might not have been an accident.

"Jeraldine?" she called out, tilting her head up the marble stairs. Her voice echoed in the stone hallways, getting distorted and more eerie as it faded away.

"Emma, Rosie, Anne, Isabelle? Olivia?" she called the names of the cleaners, but again, there was no response, but the halls repeating her words back to her.

Goose bumps ran up her arm, and Bex sucked air in as her whole body shook. They had to be somewhere...she ran up the stairs, ducking her head into every room, calling out again and again, her cries growing more weak, shaky and her voice trembling and breaking as she held back tears. She hated Jeraldine, for fostering all the many children she did, and then never seeming to care about any of their lives. But the smashed plate in the kitchen was still there, and the house was still cold and lonely.

Suddenly, someone cried out. Bex whipped around, and ran to the room nearest to the origin of the voice.

"Hello?" she called, and heard it again. It was a baby, a couple of rooms down the hall, crying out for a moment, and then drifting into silence again. She relaxed her muscles, as recognition flooded through her. Of course. Jeraldine's only child, Bella, would still be here, still be in her cot in the nursery, probably being watched over by the cleaners, or Jeraldine herself. She walked into the nursery and reached down into the heavily blanketed cot, bringing up a bundle of softness wrapped in a thin blanket. There was a bottle of milk half spilled on the floor, and another shiver went through Bex. She rocked the baby girl in her arms, and the enormity of what exactly was in her arms at that second slowly sank in.

Bella was a baby, a six month old baby, who would need baby food and caring, and attention 24/7. Where was Jeraldine to give it to her? She was gone now, Bex knew that. She knew, but she didn't. It didn't seem to have much of an effect on her, knowing that her supervisor wasn't there anymore. She couldn't be at work, because she didn't work. The only logical explanation was the most stupid, inexplainable, and immature one;

Jeraldine was just gone.

And apparently, so were the adults.


	5. Chapter Four

**HEY GUYS. **

**This is still postponed, I just got bored of writing the other one so I put one up here...I know, I'm the worst 12-year-old girl ever. WHUTEVZ. HATERZ GONNA HATE. XD**

**There were some changes in Chapter Three, so go check that out, cos the story is _quite _different. (well, not much)**

**OK, RESUME:**

Chapter Four

Gone

Bex stood in the house, the baby Bella in her arms, wondering what to do. Should she take the baby back to the kids at the park, or leave her here, with a bottle of milk, hoping she'd know what to do. Bex knew that above all things, she needed to get back to the park. Staying here was not an option. There should be seven people in the house; not two, one oblivious to everything going on, and the other completely bewildered and overwhelmed by a threatening sense of sorrow.

She decided to take Bella. She wrapped her up in blankets, with a little baby suit underneath, several spare nappies that she was sure she wouldn't need, and a bottle of milk. She put Bella in her pram, the nappies and milk in a pocket to the side, and lifted the lightweight pram up into her arms to carry downstairs, and out through the door. She took the keys with her, and once outside, she hid them under a flower pot in the front garden.

As Bex began to walk back up the hills, she wished for a bus, badly. Maybe it was just a couple of the adults. It seemed unlikely that everyone had come home to empty houses.

Bex unlocked her phone, and opened her bus times app. No internet. As soon as she opened her phone, a world of possibilities sparked at her fingertips. She should have called 999 when the bus started rolling. Why had she walked up the hill? She was in no state to do so, and it occurred to Bex that she had been very stupid at the time. In fact, why didn't she call 999 now?

She stopped walking, and put the phone to her ear.

_"We're sorry, your call could not be put through. Please check your connection and try again."_

She checked her connection, and did a double take. No signal. There was always signal around Hightree. And Crouchstone, which she was actually nearer to.

Thoroughly scared, she set herself a brisk pace, walking up the hills, taking corners, and trying to get up to the park as quickly as possible, pushing the pram in front of her.

When she got to the park, the girls behind the gate opened it for her, and she quickly sped over to the group of Canan girls, trying not to draw attention to herself and Bella.

"Is that a baby?" Fiona, one of Bex's friends gasped.

"Yeah. No one in my house. Just Bella all alone." she explained. Fiona shook her head in disbelief.

"Been to your's yet?" Bex asked gently. Fiona shook her head again.

"My house is outside the border." she said. Bex rubbed her on the back. Pathetic really, since that wouldn't help anything, but she was showing that she understood what she meant. Fiona's parents would be gone, her house would be too, her pets, including her dog which she loved fiercely, and to top it off, she had no siblings to grieve with. She'd definitely come off worse than Bex.

Before she could think of any comforting words, some more girls came in and sat down in the group, a little trio huddled close around a weeping girl from Fairwill.

"Anyone there?" Bex called out to a girl she knew. She immediately wished that she hadn't asked. The look in her friend's eyes wasn't sad, it was a look of pure hatred, and anger and suffering, which left her in a stunned silence.

"What did I say?" she said as she passed. The girl waved her hand dismissively.

"Not you." she growled quietly. Bex didn't say anymore.

One by one, the kids from each schools returned from their patrols, most with sad faces, some, like Bex, with small children. They all turned to their school groups, some muttering to one another, but most just stared into the distance at something far off, unreachable and deep in thought. It wasn't so much the thought that adults were gone, as she had come to conclude, for Bex. It was more wanting something to _do_. Could she go home and play Halo? No internet on the street outside, surely there wouldn't be internet inside..and that meant no online games. But she did have some offline games. Could she climb a high tree and sing to herself, pretend that none of this was happening.

"Any Year Tens here?" someone called out. No one spoke, some kids shook their heads and murmured, inaudible from a distance.

"Guys, I think it's only kids under fifteen here." someone from a couple of crowds away said, loud enough for most of the silent children to hear. There was a little murmuring that broke out from this, a few 'No's and nodding and discussing with friends.

Whoever had spoken was right, Bex realised. Some girls from her year were missing, the ones with early birthdays, and no Year Tens could be seen anywhere. Fifteen seemed to be the magic number.

"Well what do we do then?" someone else called out.

"Play video games." a boy laughed grimly.

"I don't know, do what you want." someone else shouted roughly.

"Don't do that." Bex chuckled. She decided to get up and do something. All the eyes of the kids around her followed her movements, and she realised that whatever she did now, at least ten people were going to get up and copy her. She let her hands drop to her sides.

"What?" she spat bitterly out at the crowd. Before she exploded at the heat from the stares and the heat behind her cheeks combined, she walked towards the trees on the side of the path, climbed up a fairly small one, and jumped less than a metre to a bigger one, scaling the branches again until she reached the top, and could poke out her head and stare.

The kids were still watching her.

Bex tried not to care. Her phone still in her skirt pocket, she slid it out and played some music. Her favourite song, not a very well-known one, but a pop and electro one, that was recent and always made her smile. Even on a day like this.

"What're you doing?" someone stood up and called, his hands cupped around his mouth. She recognised him. That boy was from Hightree, the guy who wasn't very handsome at all, but she'd had a crush on for ages. He went on her bus every day, and had blonde hair, a strong chin, and was called George, even though she had always imagined him to be called Peter, like the perfect image of Peeta from The Hunger Games.

"Trying to relax." she smiled. He shrugged, got out his phone and copied her. She didn't mind so much, because it was him, and he was so sweet and quiet and perfect, but then a couple of other people, with and without phone started to copy him, climbing up the trees and just sitting there, enjoying the view and the breeze. She couldn't really blame them though. There wasn't anything to do, and it was quite beautiful up her, even with the border thing blocking half of what should have been there.

And so Bex sat there, on a day where everyone over the age of fifteen appeared to have vanished, there was a giant wall circling around the area where she lived. The kids were bored, scared and devastated all at the same time. And here she was, swinging her leg and smiling, listening to music and watching over the park.

What a day it had turned out to be.

"We need to get the food all in one place." someone suddenly sparked, bringing Bex back to the present, and making her pause her music, put her phone back in her pocket and slide down the tree.

"Good idea. People will be stealing and looting and we'll loose control otherwise," she added. "Who's coming with?" she shouted, suddenly full of life for reasons unbeknownst to her. A load of hands came up, and she frowned.

"We should go in groups, and cover different neighbourhoods." Tanya nodded. Everyone turned back to her.

_What're they looking at me for? _ she thought to herself. _Do they seriously want me to put them into groups? _she moaned silently.

"Ok, you, you, and you, and you and you; go around the high street. Get whatever food you can, and bring it back to the deli. You five can get any thing you can't fit in the deli, into a restaurant or supermarket, and you ten or whatever can round up school foods and bring them into the highstreet. You guys," she indicated a large group of girls sitting in a huddle near the edge of the path. "Can sort out the food and put them into different sections, and shops, say where it goes and stuff," she thought, her brain like a ball of wool, spinning out ideas as she went along. "And the rest of you can go into groups of five and six, and do one street each. Come back here when you're done." she finished.

As soon as she stopped speaking, people burst into life in front of her, friends grouping up and leaving the gates, big parties headed down or up the hill. A group of girls from Canan including Marcelle and Fiona beckoned her over to be in their group. Bex hesitated, wondering what she should do about Bella, but her friend Eve spoke up.

"Don't worry, I'll stay here and look after Bella." she soothed her.

"But shouldn't I? I mean, she's technically my sister." Bex struggled, not really wanting to stay with the baby girl. Eve smiled knowingly.

"I don't really want to go anywhere, so I'll stay here. I can look after her," she said. "Besides, I've always wanted a younger sister." she gazed longingly at Bella. Bex nodded.

"Well she's not for sale, but thanks."

Eve chuckled and waved her off.

"So where are we going?" a girl called Vanessa asked her, as Bex wandered back over to the group of girls who had beckoned her before.

"I dunno." she shrugged. No one spoke, and she sighed. "Ok, ok. What about we go down to Prince's Street?" she suggested. Prince's Street was just down the hill, off of a left corner, on a street covered with trees and flowers. Almost everyone in Canan wanted to live there, but the houses were huge and expensive, and although Canan was a well off school as far as London schools go, not many people in Bex's school were _that _posh.

The group of five set off down the hill towards Prince's Street, and as they settled into a synchronised pace, beating their feet against the pavement in time, Bex realised that they would have to break into the houses, and wondered if they should go back and ask the kids who lived here for their keys. But mostly adults lived on this street, and no one she knew would have keys for a mansion like the ones on these streets. Well, they weren't quite as big as mansions, but they were big. The same size as Jeraldine's house, in fact. But Bex never told anyone in her school about Jeraldine's house, and no one had come round to hang out because she'd only been there a matter of weeks.

As they came to number 1, on the start of the street, they agreed that it would be quicker if three of them did the even side, and two did the odd side of the street.

"Wait, what should we use to gather up the food?" Jessica, a girl in 9F called out just as they split up.

"Oh." Bex laughed, which got a little bit of nervous laughter from the rest of them.

"I'm sure they'll have bin bags or something inside the houses." Marcelle giggled. Of course, it wasn't all that funny, but they needed something to laugh at right then.

Marcelle and Bex crossed the street to the odds side, and Bex grabbed a pebble from the front garden and threw it as hard as she could against the nearest window, which smashed completely, much easier than at Jeraldine's house.

As the pane shattered, Bex laughed, finding it fun to smash windows. What a bad thought, but it was fun. It gave her a sense of power.

The two girls crawled through the window, landing softly on thick carpet. Hearing a splutter of an alarm go off, and they froze. It went off briefly, but no one came to see what the racket was about, and it faded out. The girls relaxed, stood up straight, and wandered into what they supposed was the kitchen.

Marcelle found a couple of bin bags for them both, and they set to work, grabbing packets of biscuits, cartons of milk and juice, packets of cereal, fruit; basically anything they found that was edible.

"These people were stuffed! Look at all this...there's a load of steaks in the fridge!" Marcelle gasped. "I love steak..." she added, gazing at the uncooked slabs of meat.

"Me too." Bex said, remembering BBQs at school where they occasionally had steak sandwiches on offer. She would open up the baguettes, spread some butter all around, put in the steak, and squirt ketchup everywhere. Like a posh bacon sarnie.

The two girls stood there in silence, their huge bin bags no where near full, a packet of something in their hands, remembering the steak. Bex laughed quietly, and wondered why she was laughing so much on a day like this. Where everything had changed. And she had laughed more in the past hour than she thought was possible when all sign of everyone supposedly over fifteen had vanished.

_What a birthday this is turning out to be._


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Extreme

In an impressive forty-eight minutes, Bex, Marcelle, Jessica, Vanessa, and Fiona had stuffed all of the food on Prince's Street into ten bin bags, and had two each, hauling them up the hill to a group of kids, who pointed them in different directions, and shrugging. There was a _lot, _of shrugging, and not much seemed organised. In the end the girls all just decided to go to the deli, and they helped sort the tins and vegetables and meats and cartons of juice etc into different sections for each type of food. Luckily there was a downstairs, and so a lot of the food could be put in there, although it did have to be spread across two other restaurants. With all of the kids working hard, they got most of the streets in he bubble done, although everyone knew there were other streets and houses to have food collected from. No one was in the mood though, and so no one mentioned it, and they all just decided to forget.

Bex had decided to pick up her precious beats (headphones) from the house, and so plugged them into her phone and hiked up to a high spot in the park. Whilst everyone else returned to their friends and their schools, she just wanted to be alone for a while and think. She climbed up another high tree, right to the top this time. The branches swayed at first under her weight, but she managed to get to the top, and look out across the park. A few kids pointed at her from below, but she wasn't all that hight up, and no one came to get her down or talk. So she put on her beats and pressed play on her phone, the volume as loud as she could get it, and leaned back as far as she dared.

Bex was into electronic music, and dubstep, a lot of Madeon, and so she tapped her feet and moved her hand with the music, and when the beat dropped, she just closed her eyes and laughed.

"It's funny how music can be so liberating. So beautiful." she said to herself, and then laughed again. The music was so loud that she couldn't hear herself anyway. Then she looked down at the ground and saw all the kids, so small from up where she was, ahe remembered Bella, and how Bex should be caring for her at the time. But Eve had seemed so happy with Bella, surely it was ok for Bex to leave the baby with her whilst she just had some space to think.

Then something moved in her peripheral vision, and she took her headphones off and turned around to see Peeta, or George as he was actually called. He was from Hightree school, and Bex wasn't exactly the most confident person ever, so him coming near her or talking to her made her heart pump fast and smile uncontrollably. She sat up on the branch, and he climbed up to her with surprising quiet and grace for a guy as tall as him.

"Hey." he said, and smiled at her. Butterflies fluttered in her tummy, and she had to keep herself from giggling, which wasn't like her at all. Not like the tomboy Bex who liked football and hated girls who giggled all the time.

"Hi." she said.

"It's a great view from up here isn't it?" he commented, looking out across the park.

"Yeah, I'll have to remember it. I bet it'd look beautiful at night, when the stars are out." she wondered aloud, and George laughed. She blushed a little.

_Was that weird? _she wondered. _Did I sound too childish? _

Bex was suddenly extremely self conscious, but not quite uncomfortable, she just had an overwhelming urge to be perfect.

"Bet it would be." he said, and coughed a little to clear his throat. "So, listen, um...well. What d'you think we should do?" he asked, and she rolled her eyes.

"I dunno, people can do whatever they want." she answered, but could see that he didn't look satisfied, so Bex continued.

"Personally I'm gonna go home and just..." but she trailed off, and looked at her feet dangling off the edge of the tree.

"Yeah, I don't know. What're you gonna do?" she asked Peeta-George. He stared off into the distance, looking for something she couldn't see in the sky.

"Well, I have three younger sisters, so I just need to do whatever I can to keep them healthy," he said, and Bex's heart warmed. He had younger sisters, and wanted to protect them, that was so sweet! "I think they're organising rations down there, how much food people get per week per family. Y'know that Tanya girl?" he looked straight at her, his bright blue eyes serious and anxious as they turned on her, and she nodded. "Yeah, she's taken the lead on that one. But there are quite a few people who don't think all the adults are gone, and don't wanna join in." he said, and shuffled closer, making Bex breath in through her teeth. He pointed down to a few little huddles of kids and teens who had sat themselves away from the biggest circle.

"Whadda you think?" she asked him, and he sighed and shook his head.

"I dunno. I think a part of me knows that they're gone, but I really don't want to accept it."

"Yeah, I feel the same. But I'm kind of ok to accept it. I'm a loner by default." she laughed. It was an empty laugh though, which showed George that she wasn't entirely happy being alone, that there was a part of her that wanted to be with someone.

"Don't you want your parents?" he asked, and Bex flinched.

"Yeah, I'm an orphan, I just moved to a new foster parent who I don't like very much. I'm kind of a hostile character in general." she explained, and saw Peeta-George's expression turn apologetic.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's ok, I've never met them so it's not that sad for me." she smiled, hoping it would make the situation less awkward.

They were both distracted as two figures on the ground started going at each other, and Bex slipped onto a lower branch.

"Come on Peeta, we'd better get down there." she said, and heard him laugh behind her. She froze.

"What did you call me?" he asked her.

"Shit..." she said quietly, and made him laugh again. "I meant George, I'm sorry." she corrected.

"But how do you know my name?" he slipped down next to her, and raised an eyebrow, knowing he had caught her out.

"One of my friends has you on facebook." she lied quickly, but George didn't look convinced, and was holding in his laughter. She blushed, and brushed past him on the tree, carefully climbing down as he called "Riiiight." sarcastically down from above her. She ignored him and jogged towards the boys who were fighting. The truth was that Bex had looked him up on facebook, but if she told him that, she'd seem like a weirdo stalker person, which in actual fact, wasn't that far from the truth. She broke into a sprint, but George passed her effortlessly, smiling over his shoulder at her. She slowed as she came near the boys, and saw George trying to pull them apart. The other guy punched George in the eye, and he staggered backwards, George's hand touching the injured eye experimentally. Bex moved in between them, and dodged a kick from one of the kids, shoving them backwards to be held back by a few kids each.

"What the hell happened?" she shouted at them, before realising it was actually none of her business. "And why d'you need to punch him in the eye for it, what'd he do?" she added, and one of the boys spat on the ground between them, panting, so the other guy spat on the ground in front of him too. The boy to her left had a bloody nose and the other one had the makings of a black eye as he spoke up.

"He said he'd miss my sister, and that he'd make her a grave!" he shouted, and Bex turned to the other guy, who shouted back.

"She's my girlfriend man I was being considerate!"

"She's not dead!" the guy before shouted, but I could hear his voice break, and he seemed upset. "She's not gone you can't just give up like that she's still alive!" he started out screaming at him but he ended up sobbing. He stopped struggling and the teens who were holding him back gave him rubs on the shoulder and hugs. The other boy came forward and gave him a hug, slapping him on the back and just holding him there for the while.

"Don't give up hope," Bex said to the both of them, and then shut up again because it wasn't her problem to solve, and she technically shouldn't have gone in in the first place.

"Now that you're back what to you think we should do?" Fiona said, walking up to her. Bex rolled her eyes and stomped her foot.

"Why does everyone keep asking me this? I don't know." she shook her head, and Fiona gave her a kind of look like, _Ok, sorry, just asking, jeez! _

"When they sort out the food, we should all go home or stay here, it depends and doesn't really matter." Bex sighed, because Fiona wasn't going away. Still looking for an answer from her. Fiona nodded, looking happy with that at least, and so Bex made her way over to Tanya, who was in the middle of a circle of mainly girls, but with a few boys here and there, talking about what family had how many members and then how much food they needed realistically.

"So, what's going on here?" she asked, rubbing her hands together in the cold, wishing she'd brought a coat.

"How many tins of baby food is a baby supposed to get through a day?" Tanya asked her, her straight brown bob hanging around her head like a glossy brown halo as she continued to write without looking up.

"I dunno, maybe two?" Bex guessed, and Tanya tilted her head skyward.

"Then we're doing great!" she said, and then explained to everyone around her who was staring at her like a lunatic fresh from the asylum.

"Because we don't have as many as we do of...say, juice cans, but we don't have many babies, and two a day could keep us going for a long while, till this barrier thing or whatever comes down." she said, but her eyes grew dull as she spoke.

"Um, I have a friend who has a baby sister, but she's five and doesn't know how to take care of it." a ten year old entered the circle, and asked, her eyes moving around to Tanya and then Bex.

_For god's sake I don't know everything people! _Bex though to herself.

Tanya tapped her pen on her lip thoughtfully.

"We could have a nursery." she suggested. "For kids under the age of three?"

"But who knows enough about babies, and has enough time to do that?" someone said.

"Well we've all got plenty of time nowadays." Bex snorted, and then remembered that they were trying to keep a positive attitude, and so kept her mouth shut.

"We could have staff, and a timetable, so different people come in at different times. That way everyone's happy right?" Tanya explained.

"Sure, that could work." someone else said from further back in the circle. There was a silence that settled over them as everyone slowly understood that the adults weren't coming back. At least not until the barrier was down. Some kids who had thought that there were adults in the area were joining the bigger groups again, and Tanya's group were taking the sensible road and organising as much as they could until the adults got back from...wherever they were.

Tanya walked and bent down into some little circles, suggesting the idea of a nursery where there were rotating staff. Everyone thought it was a good idea, but there were few volunteers. Bex noticed that Eve was one of the first to say that if this nursery did start up, she would be available to work as a member of the staff, which twitched a smile on Bex's face. Eve clearly enjoyed being with baby Bella, so why pry her away from the girl? It wasn't like Bex knew any better, or wanted her more. Sure, she was her sister by adoption, and she wanted to make sure that she was ok, but Bex wasn't exactly keen on being responsible for a baby.

Like everybody, Bex just wanted to go home.


End file.
